Sticky maple pecan cake

This cake proved popular last night on Instagram, I promised to post the recipe.

For the cake:
225g butter, at room temperature
210g caster sugar
5 eggs
210g self-raising flour
85g pecans, roughly chopped

For the icing:
220g butter, at room temperature
200ml maple syrup
4 tablespoons milk
340g icing sugar, sifted
Pecan halves, to decorate

Preheat the oven to 180degC. Grease two 20cm round cake tins and line the bottoms with grease proof paper.

Beat the butter and sugar together until pale and creamy, then beat in the eggs one at a time. Sift flour over the egg mixture, then fold in. Add the pecans and fold in. Spoon the mixture into the tins, smoothing the top with the back of a spoon. Bake for 25 minutes until golden and a skewer inserted in the centre comes out clean. Turn out onto a wire rack and leave to cool completely.

To make icing beat together the butter, syrup, milk, and icing sugar until smooth and creamy. (Mine split, cause the butter was warm but the syrup was cold, so I warmed it in 10 second bursts in the microwave, whisking after each burst until it was smooth, of course then it was quite runny so had to sit in the fridge!)

I split the cakes in half, then built the cake up, spreading the icing between each layer, then decorated the top with the extra pecans.

Serves 8, best eaten on the day it was made.